I believe the first step is to not use the phrase Gun Control or Gun Culture. We have to take the word “control” out of the conversation and (stop distancing ourselves from what happens when people who have no business possessing a gun have one). People referring to gun culture in the United States insist that you are talking about taking guns away from them and the opportunity to hold on to them until you pull them from their cold dead hand. I am not talking about that either, I want to talk about guns.
I believe we are anaesthetized to gun violence that we see on television, in video games and in movies. When we watch the bad guys get shot on TV, we know that after the scene is finished, the actors get to wash off the fake blood and resume their lives. This doesn’t happen in the real world with real guns.
Too many of the concealed hand gun group thinks they can be Bruce Willis or Clint Eastwood if they were to get involved in a firefight. This is really foolish thinking. Trained police officers and soldiers many times freak out in the chaos of a firefight.
As I said, I’m not talking about hunters, but I do have a problem with hand guns, assault rifles and multiple ammunition clips and I think the majority of country does also. Now if you are one those people who pop up right here and say something like, “Well, more people are killed every year with automobiles than guns,” then you don’t get to participate because you are TOO STUPID to participate in this debate . Yes thousands of people are killed every year in car ACCIDENTS. People are not out deliberately killing people with cars. Automobiles were invented to get us from point a to point b. Guns were invented to kill things. That is their sole purpose. Yes, you can do other things with a gun, but, trust me; guns weren’t invented to shoot skeet.
In discussing background checks the NRA is against them, not because it has anything to do with taking your guns away, but because it is inconvenient. Their mantra is that background checks are inconvenient for law bidding citizens and criminals don’t buy guns from legitimate dealers. Here is the problem I have with that. None of the school shootings or work place shootings that have happened in the last twenty years were committed by criminals. They weren’t murdered by mobsters, drug cartels, or gangs; they were killed by law abiding citizens who had work related, domestic or mental problems and they were expressing their second amendment right to grab their gun and use it.
The vast majority of people in this country are not gun owners although the NRA would like for you to believe otherwise. The most recent study shows that gun ownership is down despite news stories to the contrary. ( See The Washington Post: http://wapo.st/VGmwZo) Of the 315 million people who live in the United States only about 4 million belong to the NRA not that every one who owns a gun is a member.
Another thing the NRA brings up is that there are plenty of gun laws on the books now. This is true, but what they don’t tell you is that many of them have no teeth because lawmakers have taken the bite from them by diluting them or slipping in amendments in other bills that make them null and void. The ATF, the agency for enforcing federal gun laws, has been without a director for more than four years.
I really don’t think Congress will do much about this for a number of reasons. First of all they don’t do much about anything and as long as we have boneheads like this in high government offices,
Stay tuned for future adventures.
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